Forceful forechecking helps drive Flyers' streak of success

Teammates on the bench greet the Flyers’ Matt Read after he scored a short-handed goal against the Penguins last Sunday. Read said Thursday the development of the Flyers’ forechecking is the ‘reason we’re winning.’ (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers have sustained an offensive upswing that accompanied a streak of 10 wins in their last 13 games heading into a meeting Thursday night against the Dallas Stars. But if you’ve been looking closely you might have noticed their defense has appeared to make more strides of late than their offense.

Don’t be fooled, however, for according to the Flyers’ most senior of defensemen, the real key to the recent improved play has been their offensive players making life a little easier on the blue line set.

“We create turnovers and put pressure on their (defense),” Kimmo Timonen said Thursday. “And we don’t play defense as much as we used to. Obviously, the shots (against) are going to be down and all kinds of things are going when we skate and forecheck hard. That’s been our game and we have to keep it up for the next 14 games.”

It’s also something Timonen has been preaching frequently over the past two or three seasons: that teams that forecheck hard and skate constantly have the better chance to put winning streaks together.

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He’s gratified that the message has finally seemed to set in.

“I know as a defenseman when teams are after you all the time, it’s not easy,” Timonen said. “And we’ve been skating a lot and putting a lot of pressure on their D and that’s been the key. You’d like to have that going all the time but it’s not easy. It’s a long season and sometimes you don’t have it. But it seems like the last two months we’ve been playing pretty well and we’ve been skating pretty well.”

While it’s no coincidence that Claude Giroux is probably playing the best two-way hockey of his career in that same time frame, third-line forecheckers Matt Read and Sean Couturier have also had a lot to do with that effort.

“We’ve done a great job on (forechecking) as of late and I think that’s the reason we’re winning,” Read said. “The more time you spend in the offensive zone, the less time you spend in the defensive zone, which is easier on the D. If you’re in the defensive zone, (forwards) get tired and you have to change once you get the puck out. So it ends up back in our zone again. But as a forward group we’re skating a lot better; we’re rolling four lines a lot more.”

Read said Craig Berube changing the forecheck and hammering home its importance since he took over as head coach three games into the season has really been paying dividends.

“That’s one of the things right off the bat that he emphasized, that we were lazy with forechecking,” Read said. “We’d have one guy go in, and that made it easy for the other team to break out of their zone. That was one of our problems. So he talked about that and talked about the defensive zone. He put a lot of emphasis on playing sound hockey as a group, rather than individuals. You work as a line, and have the forecheck work as a line and with the defense, and that’s how you win hockey games. That’s something we really worked on this whole year, and it’s been proven right because we’re winning hockey games now.”

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NOTES: Stars coach Lindy Ruff, who waged many battles with the Flyers during a long tenure as a head coach in Buffalo, notes this is a different Flyers team he’s seeing. “I think the speed part of their game on those top three lines might be as good as I’ve seen in them,” Ruff said. “It used to be, maybe they’d have a couple of lines of depth and speed. But it looks to me that throughout the lineup there’s some good speed now.” ... Stars center Rich Peverley underwent a successful procedure Tuesday at the Cleveland Clinic Tuesday to get his heartbeat out of a-fib and into a sinus rhythm. There is no word on his immediate future. Asked Thursday about Peverley, his teammate with both the Boston Bruins and the Stars, center Tyler Seguin said, “Things like that stay within the team. But Pevs is a big part of this club, whether he’s here with us or not.”